Beach cleaners used to remove petroleum deposits from beaches are known. In one cleaner, an endless belt is wrapped around a plurality of rollers powered by an engine integral with the cleaner. The belt is provided with protruding metallic spikes which are pressed into the surface of the beach to impale the debris and lift it from the beach surface. This cleaner, however, is disadvantageous in that the metallic spikes are easily damaged, the plurality of rollers are unnecessarily complicated, the belt frequency leaves its track around the rollers and the weight of the engine makes the cleaner unnecessarily heavy and cumbersome.
Various other cleaners lift the top layer of sand from the beach, sift large particles from the sand or flood the top layer of sand with water in an attempt to float the petroleum deposits from the sand. These designs are costly, complicated and again, unduly cumbersome.